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Low Calorie Smoothie with no fat.

1/2 cup cold Orange Juice (fresh squeezed is best!)

1/4 cup plain non-fat yogurt

1/2 cup crushed ice

1 or more packets splenda (to taste)

89 calories, 0 fat. (weight watcher points value 2)

Grain group servings include 1 slice of bread, 1/2 cup of cooked rice or pasta, 1/2 cup of cooked cereal, and 1 ounce of ready to eat cereal. Your child should eat 6 servings from this group.

Vegetable group servings include 1/2 cup of chopped or raw vegetables, or 1 cup of raw leafy vegetables. Your child should eat 3 servings from this group.

Fruit group servings include 1 piece of fruit or melon wedge, 3/4 cup of 100% fruit juice, 1/2 cup of canned fruit, or 1/4 cup of dried fruit. Your child should eat 2 servings from this group.

Milk group servings include 1 cup of milk or yogurt or 2 ounces of cheese. Your child should eat 2 servings from this group.

Meat/Protein group servings include 2 to 3 ounces of cooked lean meat, poultry or fish, 3 oz tofu, 1/2 cup of cooked dry beans. You can substitute 2 tablespoons of peanut butter or 1 egg for 1 ounce of meat. Your child should eat 2 servings from this group. 

My children are not picky. It’s a myth that all toddlers and children are picky eaters that only like hotdogs and applesauce – if you give them a wide variety of foods from the start they will grow up liking a wide variety of foods. Be a role model – show them that you eat healthy foods and they will do the same.

Sorry for the lack of photo posts these days, we’ve been super busy working and feeding all these family members, ha! I have some great ideas for new posts though so stay tuned!

Please leave me any comments you might have with ideas for posts you want to see or questions you have!

Planned so far:

Fun with Jello

Food-Stuffs on Sticks

Baby Food Recipes

Ingredients

  Heat broiler.

1. Coat large broiler-pan rack with nonstick vegetable-oil cooking spray.
2. Mix brown sugar, allspice, black pepper, onion powder, thyme, salt and cayenne in bowl.
3. Whisk in oil, molasses and lime juice until smooth.
4. Add shrimp; toss to coat.
5. Cover and refrigerate for 10 minutes, stirring after 5 minutes.
6. Arrange shrimp in single layer on broiler-pan rack.
7. Broil about 4 inches from heat for 2 minutes.
8. Turn shrimp over.
9. Broil 1-2 minutes or until shrimp are cooked through.
10. Serve shrimp immediately with white rice if desired.
11. Garnish with lime wedges.

These mini muffins are Vegan and they are low calorie and low fat, making them only 1 weight watcher point per muffin!

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup brown sugar, unpacked

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup soymilk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 or 4 over-ripe (black) mashed bananas)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).

In a bowl, combine flour, oats, sugar, baking powder, soda, and salt.

In another large bowl, soy mix together milk and vanilla.

Add the mashed bananas, and combine thoroughly.

Stir the flour mixture into the banana mixture until just combined.

Lightly grease and dust mini muffin tins (I was able to make 36 mini muffins!)

Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 9 or 10 minutes.

Freezing:

Wait until cooled, place in zip lock bags. Leave on counter for a few hours to defrost.

Heat oven to 350F. Line a 12 cup muffin pan with foil baking cups, spray the cups with cooking spray.  Thaw and drain spinach, wring it out well. Mix the spinach, egg whites, cheese and onions in a bowl. (You could also add hot sauce or other veggies for more flavor) Fill the foil cups with the mixture.  Bake at 350F or 20 minutes, testing so that a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Remove from cups.

Flash freeze on a cookie sheet in the freezer, freeze in freezer bags. Thaw over night, heat up in a toaster over. (To heat up in microwave remove foil cup!)

Ok these are “minis” but they are so good, so moist and delicious that just a few will do ya! When I first heard this recipe from Hungry Girl – I thought GROSS – because I hate pumpkin, but I tried it anyway and I’m sure glad I did. You do not taste the pumpkin at all! All you taste is moist rich chocolaty goodness!

And the recipe couldn’t be easier!

1 box devil’s food cake mix (some brands are even Vegan!)

1 can pumpkin

1 cup water

Mix well – drop spoonfuls into mini muffin tins. You can make 36 with a little left over batter or you can easily make 48 if you dont’ over-fill the cups. (Sadly either way you still get a point value of 1 – ha!)

Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. I have not tried to freeze these yet but you know that I will and will let you know how it goes!

Check out the link above to Hungry Girl – you can view their blog via an e-mail subscription, there is great advice, food finds and recipes there! She now also works with Weight Watchers.

When you think of things to put in your freezer several easy answers come to mind including fruits, veggies and meats – but there is so much more you can freeze! Freezing foods lets you save time in preperation and money on sale items:

Who would have thought you could freeze:

Pasta

Rice

Hummus

Cookie Dough

Stick Butter

Egg whites

Freeze with Caution:

Milk (you can freeze it but it changes the texture some and absorbs freezer flavors, also anything other than skim seperates)

Bananas (I love to freeze bananas for smoothies! I freeze them in the peel! Especially the ones my toddler leavs unfinished! However be warned, they do change color)

Cheese (changes texture)

Don’t freeze these:

greasy foods

soft cheeses

mayo

sour cream

This just lists a few choices for each category! There is a lot of research and some great books out there. For Freezer or OAMC recipes I love to visit www.recipezaar.com!

The question is – Is milk a pure and vital food that everyone can and SHOULD drink as part of a healthy diet – or is it not only cruel but virtually poison to your body? (or at the least, not that great for you)

The short answer is this: NOBODY KNOWS FOR SURE. No one. Inconclusive tests, misleading ads, hard pushes from two large lobbyist groups PETA and The Dairy Industry push their opinions on both sides. For every bit of research against milk there is research in favor of it – there is “evidence” for both sides.

However, one thing is clear – most of the pro-milk articles are written by or paid for by the dairy industry in some way. The federal government has researched and stated there is no clear “winner” and the FDA is investigating the Got Milk/Milk your diet ads as we speak.

Some of the reasons not to drink milk are theories or assumptions with no evidence to support either side so just have to do with your gut.
Some of the reasons not to drink milk are because you find certain aspect just plain cruel or gross.
And some of the reasons not to drink milk are cold hard undeniable facts.

Facts you cannot deny:
Cows milk is meant to feed baby cows. No other animal drinks milk beyond babyhood besides humans. Cows are not meant to produce milk for the entire human race.

Dairy cows produce 10x the amount of milk they are supposed to. Because of this cows are kept pregnant to produce milk and to produce more milk producing cows. They are full of hormones and antibiotics which leech into the milk you drink – the milk you drink contains hormones, antibiotics, cow blood and puss. Sound yummy? Didn’t think you had a big bowl of Cheerio’s and Puss this morning did you?

Things that might be true:
The dairy industry wants us to believe that if we don’t drink milk our bones will crack and all our teeth will fall out – this just isn’t true. There are better sources of calcium available.
Adults out grow the enzyme that digests milk (because you aren’t meant to drink it anymore) so most adults get some degree of lactose intolerance depending on the amount of dairy you eat at a time).
Diary produces more mucus which causes allergies, and ear infections in children. (The diary industry says this isn’t true – but if you’ve ever had a a bad cold and tried to down a big glass of milk you know that milk does in fact make you produce more mucus. In fact, your doctor will tell you not to drink milk when you have a bad cold).

Milk makes you fat – no skinny – no fat!!
This one is up for debate as well. Whole milk will make you fat – no one denies that I believe. However, the diary industry and some doctors will tell you that a new study has come out showing that eating low fat and fat free diary products will help you burn more fat. This might be true it might not be true.
You know what else makes you burn more fat? Jogging!

So what’s with all the dairy ads?
Sadly, the US Dept of Agriculture reigns over the diary ads. And they have low standards of scientific effort. You need two small scale studies to claim something publicly as a fact, and it doesn’t matter if more studies say otherwise. Also – the dairy industry might as well be called the MilkMob – seriously. Any group with that much money has some serious government pull.

So what’s it all mean?
In a nut shell – at the very least I’ve decided that there are better alternatives to drinking milk. Will I pull milk from my diet and my family’s diet completely? No. But I will lessen it’s use considerable. The main thing that needs to go (for me, can’t speak for my husband) is MILK itself. It can easily be replaced. I can’t say that I wouldn’t have a slice of cheese one in a blue moon or an ice cream once in a while (both of which I rarely have anymore just due to dieting alone).

What no links?
I’m not providing links to research or website because I don’t want to promote any of them on either side. A quick google search for milk will give you more than you ever wanted to know about either school of thought.